CommentsOnDrDavidCRingIdeaAsTheFormOfThoughtInDescartesByPaulHoffman
David Ring finds two incompatible definitions of ideas in Descartes: the representational or imagistic definition, and the form definition. There are two elements to the representational definition, at least according to Professor Ring's account of the ccandard interpretation of it: first, an idea is a mode of thought that represents something; and second, an idea represents by containing objective reality. According to Descartes's form definition, an idea is the form of any thought, immediate perception of which makes me aware of the thought. These definitions yield incompatible results, because, Professor Ring argues, Descartes thinks there two kinds of non-representational thoughts which count as ideas under the form definition. His solution to this apparent inconsistency is to argue that the form definition is the more fundamental definition because it provides a unified account of the awareness of a thought, and that the representation definition should be understood as being limited in its application to certain specialized contexts.
Although Professor Ring denies that Descartes thinks all ideas represent something, he nevertheless thinks that throughout his writings Descartes "firmly maintains that all ideas in the strict sense must have a subject matter and thereby be "of" something" (p. 15, note 5, cf. pp. 11, 13). That is, Professor Ring claims to find in Descartes a crucial distinction between an idea's representing something and an idea's being of something. And it is this distinction, I think, that is driving the paper. Since he thinks that all ideas are of something but that not all ideas represent something, he is motivated to search for an account of ideas that provides a unified theory of awareness, that is, an account which explains how those ideas or forms of
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thought that are not representational can still be of something. He claims that the form definition provides such an account.
This distinction, between an idea's representing something and an idea's being of something, is not one that defenders of the standard interpretation are likely to recognize. For them, for an idea to be of something just is for it to represent something. One might well imagine a defender of the standard interpretation responding to Professor Ring in this way: the forms that you are calling non-representational are representational since you yourself say they are of something.
There is very good reason to doubt that Descartes distinguishes between an idea's representing something and an idea's being of something. The passage that Professor Ring cites as the key piece of textual evidence in favor of the standard interpretation view that all ideas represent something lies in close proximity in the Third Meditation to the passage he cites as the key piece of evidence that all ideas are of something. These are the two passages: first (this is the passage supporting the standard interpretation that all ideas represent something), "Some of my thoughts are as if images of things, and it is only in these cases that the term 'idea' is strictly appropriate (AT VII 37; CSM II 25); and second (this is the passage alleged to support the view that all ideas are of something), "there can be no ideas which are not as if of things" (AT VII 44; CSM II 30). I am inclined to think that far from saying two different things, the second passage really refers back to the first, and that Descartes thinks that being as if of something just is being as if an image of something. I think the French translation of the second passage bears this out. Professor Ring thinks that translation is mistaken. That passage is rendered in English by Cottingham as follows: "ideas, being like images, must in each case appear to us to represent
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something."
It is important to note here that the Third Meditation passage which Professor Ring cites as evidence for the view that Descartes thinks all ideas are of something really provides evidence only for the view that Descartes thinks all ideas are as if of something. I will speak in terms of ideas being as if of something, where Professor Ring speaks in terms of ideas being of something.
Since I think that Descartes does not distinguish between an idea's being as if an image of something and an idea's being as if of something, I agree with the standard interpretation that there is no room in Descartes for ideas that are as if of something that are not representational. Thus, I think Professor Ring's attempt to see the form definition "to account for how an idea can still be of something without being representational" (p. 13) is misguided. There are no such ideas.
I would also argue that it is [a] mistake to think that Descartes's form definition of ideas could explain his claim in the Third Meditation that all ideas are as if of something. On the contrary, Descartes's use of the form definition of ideas indicates that some forms of thought that count as ideas on that definition are not as if of something. Therefore that definition is in fact inconsistent with the passage Professor Ring alleges that it explains. Volitions are the clearest example of such forms of thought. As Professor Ring and other commentators have noted, Descartes, in responding to Hobbes, says that volitions are ideas because we immediately perceive them. More precisely, Descartes says that when I will something, I perceive that I will, and this is why volitions are ideas (AT VII 181; CSM II 127). What Descartes seems to be implying here is that volitions are ideas not because we are aware of the representational aspect of such thoughts, but because we are aware of
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the volitional aspect of them. But the volitional aspect of a thought is not itself as if of something in the Third Meditation sense. It might be true to say that the volitional aspect of a thought has an object in the sense that it is directed toward or away from something, but it is a mistake to think that a volition is as if of something in the same way Descartes says that our sensation of cold is as if of something. And it seems hardly intelligible, as Professor Ring is committed to saying, that the volitional aspect of a thought is as if of its thought's form (p. 14). So I think the correct conclusion is that there is a genuine tension between Descartes's two definitions of idea. But I don't think this tension is philosophically problematic. Sometimes Descartes uses the term 'idea' to refer to the forms of thought that are immediate objects of thought, but other times he restricts it to refer to those forms of thought that are as if of something.
Let me be clear, however, that I am not trying to vindicate what Professor Ring characterizes as the standard interpretation of the representation definition of ideas. As I noted at the outset, he identifies two elements in the representation definition. The first is that an idea is a form of thought that represents something. The second is that an idea represents by containing objective reality. It is his acceptance of this account of how ideas represent, coupled with the strong textual evidence that Descartes thinks that there are some ideas, most notably sensations, that are as if of something but which do not contain any objective reality, that leads him to conclude that Descartes thinks that some ideas which are as if of something are not representational.
In other words, Professor Ring thinks that in order to save Descartes
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from being committed to the three following inconsistent propositions:
1. All ideas are as if an image of something;
2. All ideas that are as if an image of something have objective reality;
3. Not all ideas have objective reality;
we should deny that he assents to the first proposition and replace it with the proposition that "all ideas are as if of something." I have responded that there is no difference between these two propositions. So his solution is no solution.
What then is the correct solution? I am in wholehearted agreement with Professor Ring that Descartes thinks some ideas that are as if of something do not contain any objective reality, and this is what I take to be his fundamental challenge to the standard interpretation. Therefore, what needs to be given up is the second proposition—that all ideas that are as if images of things have objective reality — which, on my view, but not on Professor Ring's, is equivalent to the proposition that all ideas that are as if of things have objective reality. In other words, it is second element of the standard interpretation that is mistaken.
But what justifies giving up the second proposition instead of concluding that Descartes contradicts himself? The answer is that Descartes thinks most of our ideas that are as if of something do contain objective reality, and to avoid complications in explaining his notion of objective reality he sometimes overgeneralizes. That is, contrary to Professor Ring and proponents of the standard interpretation, I do not think that Descartes uses the notion of objective reality to explain the notion of representation. Instead, I think that he uses the notion of representation, being as if of something, to explain objective reality. And to simplify that account of
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objective reality, a complicated enough notion by itself, Descartes leaves out that important class of ideas that are as if of things but which do not contain objective reality. This is not to say he completely ignores that class of ideas, but instead treats them separately in his discussions of material falsity.
In the end, I think, my points of agreement with Professor Ring are more significant than our points of disagreement. But let me conclude by noting one important area of disagreement between us. In a footnote Professor Ring argues that his interpretation shows that Descartes recognizes that sensations are not intentional, they do not represent, they are not about anything, and so Descartes is not guilty of Richard Rorty's accusation that he defines the mental as the intentional. On my reading of Descartes, sensations are as if of something, and that is just what it is to be intentional or representational.
There is more to be said here. I believe that in order to make Descartes's account of material falsity intelligible it is necessary to attribute two distinct senses of representation to him. Materially false ideas are representational in the fundamental sense of being as if of something, but they are not representational in the other sense, according to which to represent something is to be caused by it. But that is a story to be worked out on another occasion.
Paul Hoffman
MIT
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